This year I stood first time in local elections for the Labour party, in Thurrock. It was thought that I was venturing into Tory heartland, somewhere which had seen no Labour representation for a decade. And there was a strong support for the United Kingdom Independence party – Ukip posters on almost every street in the ward, people shouting to me from other side of streets ‘I’m voting Ukip!’ – oh, and I am a Polish migrant, so the challenge could not have been greater.
I have so many memories of speaking to about 1,000 voters on my own in the course of the campaign. The number one issue that came across was the real disengagement, distrust in politics and politicians and lack of hope. It was overwhelming. Winter months, door after door I hear the same: ‘Sorry, I don’t believe you any more. I have heard this before.’ I would think to myself: ‘Why on Earth, while I’m here in this freezing cold, wanting to really change things for people, am I hearing this? How to make ways to their hearts? How to make them believe me?’
Funnily enough, though, there was a glimmer of hope: many people told that they had not seen any candidate for years. I will never forget a lady who opened the door and told me: ‘You are the first I’ve seen for the last 25 years!’ ‘Wow, I feel like a hero’ I thought.
So, I was supposed to be a ‘paper’ candidate at first. But I prefer the name’ pioneer’ candidate, as Harriet Harman said at Progress inaugural Third Place First conference in 2012, and I felt real pride doing it, like a pioneer wanting to take over the ward and change the world.
Back on the doorstep, the conversation would often follow a similar trajectory. There was one couple I will never forget who opened the door to me. ‘We have always Labour,’ they said, ‘but this time we will vote Ukip.’ There had to be a way to win people back – sometimes telling people what Ukip’s policy actually is would work. ‘Do you know Ukip will make you pay for GP visits, that Nigel Farage advocates for handguns, and that he admires Vladimir Putin?’ ‘No,’ they said. ‘And we don’t like the handguns. But we will still vote Ukip, we want a change. We want to get out of Europe. There are too many immigrants’. I said: ‘If you have a Ukip councillor she or he will do nothing for you. They will blame migrants – like me – for all problems, but they will do nothing for you. And I will do things for you, I’ll work hard for you’. This was the sort of conversation I had each day. Often at this point, people would agree with me, saying something in lines: ‘I don’t really want to have Ukip councillor on my doorstep’. But not this time.
The couple was unconvinced so I went on: ‘We must not vote for worse, for destruction. I know it is hard now for everyone, but I will work for constructive and positive changes. I will work till the last drop of my blood for positive things’, I said with real emotion. I saw admiration in their eyes. ‘We like what we hear’ they said.
Then there was the man who had also been going to vote Ukip, but who took a Vote Ella Vine poster and had it in his front window for three months. Or the woman told me: ‘I have voted Tory all my life but I actually like you, your personality and I see you really speaking the truth’. It was feedback I often heard. I usually found a way of breaking up the barriers, personalise the conversation, make it friendly and to share a laugh. I didn’t used any script: every conversation was personal, but common themes appeared.
What is the conclusion for comrades up and down the country? You need to give voters a hope, trust and belief in you, and when logical arguments don’t work, show your strengths and your personality. Play it intuitively and personalise conversations. If it doesn’t work with one voter you will learn from the next one. And don’t give up. I didn’t win this time but I flew the flag for Labour and that’s how you pioneer in an area.
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Ella Vine is founder of Labour Friends of Poland
That’s all well and good, and congratulations for getting involved. The more who do the better, from whichever perspective.
But your convincing arguments as to the essential uselessness of UKIP Councillors is false and belied by the facts. Ukip do not blame migrants for everything. We admire migrants for their get up and go, for their hard work, for their perseverance. We take issue with a political class that has refused to listen to the legitimate concerns of the general public about the sheer scale of migration. The impact it has on the low waged, on public services. We take issue with politicians of all three legacy parties who regard ordinary people who voice those concerns as racist low life and bigots. Equally our Councillors work hard for their local communities. According to a survey by the Times (no friend of UKIP after all) our Councillors have the best attendance record of any political party.
Keep at it, good luck, but don’t traduced your opponents or you will be seen as part of a political class the despises ordinary men and women and their concerns.
If Ella Vine considers her woeful and impotent performance in this years local elections as pioneering against UKIP she is either deluded or completely blind to her car crash of an election.
She single handed managed to reduce the Labour vote from 693 or 38.2% of the vote to 445 votes or 25.3% of the vote. Ellas campaign can best be described as a drunken woman cycling one handed while using her mobile and then flipping over the handlebars.
If she considers this humiliating car crash of a campaign as pioneering against UKIP then God help us all. Ella targeted UKIP when the real opposition in the ward was the Conservatives. She was obsessed with UKIP and spent all her time moaning about UKIP and campaigning about UKIP. Her whole focus of her doorstep campaign was against UKIP. The local UKIP branch thinks Ella is the best recruiting tool they have in Thurrock as they claim she drove scores of voters to them by talking about UKIP on the doorstep. She acted like a Hope not Hate campaigner rather than a Labour Party election candidate. UKIP even mocked her campaign on their website. UKIP increased their vote from 214 to 564. This poor misguided woman is deluding herself and deliberately misleading readers by claiming to be pioneering against UKIP when nothing can be further from the truth. No amount of Ella’s spin and hype can hide her humiliating defeat and how she single handed drove voters away from Labour. The result? A Conservative win.
Why doesn’t this website have an article from a successful Labour Council candidate who increased their vote and fended off UKIP rather than this pathetic spin and hype from a deluded loser? She is making a laughing stock of those who have genuinely been successful in defeating UKIP and increasing the Labour vote. She can’t share lessons learned as she failed to increase the Labour vote and failed to defeat UKIP. If she isn’t a pioneer. She wrecked the Labour campaign by her UKIP obsession.
calling people in northern heartlands racist bigots,ill educated,or can’t use the internet is disgraceful,and not very grown up.complacency not targeting the tories is niave to say the list.you treat the electorate with respect.you work for them after all.what i have learned in campaigning people don’t like personal attacks,or mp’s or cllrs fighting each othr like ferrets in a sack.it’s policies you fight on.
I thought I would read an article about successful campaigning by Labour against Ukip. Instead I read an article by the infamous Ella Vine who unfortunately kept bursting into tears on the doorstep whenever confronted by people who disagreed with her. Perhaps Ella should rewrite the last paragraph of her article to ‘When logical arguments don’t work burst into tears.’
Some of the real ward issues were the illegal Gypsy camp, the loss of Greenbelt for yet more housing for London’s overspill, turning some of the grass verges into hardstandings for parking, crime and anti-social behaviour, the woeful refuse collections service of Thurrock Council. Did Ella engage people on local issues and what a Labour Councillor would do to address this? No she only spoke about her pet hate of Ukip thus turning every doorstep encounter from a potential engagement about local issues instead to a debate about Europe and bloody Ukip. And when Ella couldn’t get her own way talking with a resident on the doorstep she would burst into tears, I kid you not.
I blame the local party for picking a paper candidate who ‘ticked the boxes’ and then spent 4 months campaigning against Ukip rather than campaigning for Labour. I also blame the local party for failing to properly train Ella on canvassing and voter id. There is absolutely no point spending half an hour debating with solid Tory or Ukip supporters and popping in for a cup of coffee and then convincing yourself they are going to vote for you and putting them down as definite or probable Labour voters .
On paper the ward was going to be a Labour landslide. Only during the GOTV you discover the definite and probable Labour voters are actually voting Ukip or Tory. How many wasted hours pointlessly talking with Ukip and Tory voters and having cup of coffee with them rather than knocking on more doors and discovering where your vote really was? The canvass returns were not worth the paper they were written on and resulted in party helpers wasting their time chasing imaginary Labour voters but ending up reminding solid Ukip and Tory voters to get out and vote.
This is the same Ella Vine who is calling herself a
representant of the Polish community in the UK. The trouble is she has got no
back up as she is only good at talking and playing chess with people! She started
so many petitions, campaigns and other unwanted ideas only to find out that
only few people agree with her! She speaks loudly on the telly talking rubbish and
lying to people by saying that her opinion represents general opinion of migrants!
LOL
Kuba you have hit the nail on the head. She sets up organisations, charities and campaign groups and appoints herself as spokesperson. An examination of these organisations reveal they are nothing more than a name, Ella as the self appointed spokesperson, a website and a few online petitions. She is deliberately misleading people within the party while carefully nurturing and promoting her image. Ella has Parliamentary ambitions but is her background built on a house of cards and if anyone carefully examines this would her whole word come crashing down. Walter Mitty and Ella Vine are two peas in a pod.
I was impressed with Ella. I recall she has a Professorship with an organisation called International Peacekeeping Organisation. I imagined an international jetsetter stepping in and resolving conflicts.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered this organisation consists of just a website, the organisation was created by Ella who awarded herself a Professorship who appointed herself as Chair and whose only peacekeeping work is an online petition with 36 signatures.
I fear she could cause some real damage and embarrassment if she was ever elevated to a position of importance and influence within the party and someone did some digging into her background. I know people like to gold plate their CVs but what she is doing is beyond a joke when the party is taking her seriously and using her as a media spokesperson.
Dan, The idea behind the IPO (International Peacemkaing Organisation) is a good one, but I started it too early, it was there in my head for 11 years, since I was a teen, but I need to postpone it for another 11 years. The same with the petition you described, to change the international law to stop impunity. Only 5 people in the world could initiate that and the current PM hasn’t bothered to reply, so I’ll wait for another one. In the meantime I decided to tackle more immediate and important issues in the UK, as I cannot do everything at the same time, even though I am certainly trying to do my best 🙂 If people were doing it, too, and helping me instead of moaning (I’m not writing about you now, that’s just in general) together we would do more good. When Mother Teresa was once asked why she did all the things she did, as she wasn’t able to stop the poverty in India anyway, she replied: ‘I do everything I can in the place and time I am. If everyone of us would do the same, the world would be a different place’.
Got it? 🙂
Ps. no idea where you got the ‘professorship’ from, I have never claimed that, I’m nowhere near that. Don’t worry, I will share all about my background when the right time will come, but it hasn’t come yet.
Ps2. No one is using me as a spokesperson etc, I don’t know where people get those ideas from, I always speak for myself. But the difference is that I do get up and speak up, I make the effort, if others would do the same instead of slashing others, the world would be indeed a better place. Cheers,
It was on your very own website but you have now removed the professorship bit.
It is not true. Nothing has been changed. All remains the same. It seems that you didn’t read something properly. Next time, please do read things properly before you will go on to accusing publicly people of things.
Founder & Chair at EU Citizens Vote, CEO at CEO at Fibroaction and Chair (professorship) at Co-Founder & Chair of International Peacemaking Organisation
It looks like Frank Abagnale!
Hahah! Seems like she appointed herself as a chair to many other organisations just to add to her CV.The best thing I ever seen is the questionaire about herself which she set up. I bet she replies to it and make analysis of how great Ella is as a politician LOL I already reported her heresies and fake claims to the head quarter of LP and Polish Embassy as the last thing we want to hear is her talking about apartheid in the UK towards migrants from EU, which she said on the national telly! I suggest if she feels so bad about it she can go back to Poland and try to get a job in Parliament over there. Andrzej Lepper is the guy she should follow!!!!
The Labour Party – FOR IMMIGRANTS BY IMMIGRANTS!!
Ukip applauds the realism, dynamism and commitment that drive many immigrants to the west. We are not an anti-immigrant party. Uncontrolled, mass immigration over the past few decades, though, has come at a rate that even as open a society as Britain could not hope to digest. It has done great damage to social cohesion, to wage levels and to the quality of life in the areas most affected. We are anti-uncontrolled immigration, but we are emphatically NOT anti-immigrant.
A mature society ought to be able to govern itself and control its own borders. Only Ukip has campaigned on these policies, and only supporting and voting for Ukip can deliver them.